Afterword - Book 5 - Chapter 24 (Patreon)

Chapter 24: A Series of Hunts I

I'd alluded to it in previous afterwords, but Anthelleon 'embracing chaos' really wasn't part of my original plans. It was just one of those things that happened naturally as the story progressed—which meant that I needed to figure out how in Xaoc's name she'd go about such a thing.

She's an elf, but I didn't want it to come too easily. Pallos' apex elvenoid or not, she's changing something fundamental about how she fights. Which, naturally, means there's a pause as she fights against her instincts. Every once and a while I find a really easy and obvious answer to my great uncertainties while writing. Usually just by letting Ranthia and the others do what they will.

I don't belabor the point, but [Immortal Armaments] lets me pick a bit at how flawed our memory truly can be. Most of us remain blissfully unaware about which memories are jumbled together or outright fabricated—so long as we don't try to compare notes with someone else that was present, at least—but Ranthia gets to run face-first into the problem thanks to her Skill.

Relatedly, her gaining level 404 in the Skill following a "memory not found" will forever remain one of my most cherished dumb gags.

In contrast to my earlier point, the barkeep acknowledging Ranthia as a full member of the Hunters prematurely was a planned scene, though I really didn't have a firm idea of when I wanted to do it. After the ordeal with Avyna, obviously, but when exactly? Apparently, I chose here and now, though I'll be honest—there was no great reason I did so. I just felt like writing it and it worked well enough! Sometimes you just get a vibe for a planned scene in your head and it flows out.

Moving on to the meat of the chapter...

When I first started writing Neyvern, I wasn't really planning to keep him around. Seriously, my original plan was to have Anthelleon and Ranthia burn through party members at a decent clip, because they're both driven risk-takers. And most elves are pretty naturally risk-adverse, aside from the arrogant idiots that think themselves invincible (AKA the sort of person that Ranthia would probably recognize and refuse outright). But I actually found myself liking him and, as I fleshed him out more, I quickly realized that he was exactly Anthelleon's type.

Also, Solareon is just awesome. All hail Solareon!

And yes, the plan was always to do an in medias res style jump to the battle with the mountain lord of sound. Ranthia was confident in her plan, but they were never going to face the beast in its own lair. And the biggest issue was, of course, that they just weren't ready. Neyvern lacked a sense of teamwork with them (which was supposed to get him kicked off the team in the aftermath of the fight), Anthelleon dramatically overestimated herself and underestimated their opponent, and Ranthia just wasn't a direct match for the bear.

Still, together, they managed to accomplish what none of them could do together.

I'll end this one with a confession: I suck at writing lyrics. Please don't expect that to be a common thing; I owe Gemy for helping to polish these few into something that actually has a rhythm!